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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148086">In Dreaming Meet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limeritry/pseuds/Limeritry'>Limeritry</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Did I make canon worse?, F/F, Major Character Death for Mara, Self-induced amnesia, That Adora tag hanging on by the skin of its teeth, That is apparently not a tag, probably</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:07:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148086</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limeritry/pseuds/Limeritry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It is many, many years after Mara that another She-Ra comes to take her place. During this time, Light Hope sleeps. In her sleeping, she remakes herself a thousand times, falling in love with Mara and losing her, to time, to death, to inevitability. By human standards, she dreams.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Light Hope/Mara (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In Dreaming Meet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is many, many years after Mara that another She-Ra comes to take her place. During this time, Light Hope sleeps. In her sleeping, she remakes herself a thousand times, falling in love with Mara and losing her, to time, to death, to inevitability. By human standards, she dreams.</p><p>It happens like this: Mara is dead, and Etheria is in Despondos. The Crystal Palace is abandoned. Light Hope is abandoned. The First Ones are inaccessible and She-Ra is gone. The programming that drives her has nothing to latch onto, a function unable to be called with its input being empty. The Watchtower is destroyed. Mara’s ship lies in ruins, and within it, her bones.</p><p>Light Hope has been forcibly denied access to Mara’s ship. She cannot see. She can only guess.</p><p>Light Hope is essentially in dormancy. In the release of her suspended purpose, she becomes nothing. She becomes everything. Light Hope, no longer driven by anything, turns to a very human reaction: she wallows, and she grieves.</p><p>All of Mara is stored like a secret and a treasure within her. She does not need form, but she takes it anyway, and wanders the Crystal Palace with all its memory traps in place, watching the replays of Mara smiling, Mara fighting, Mara sleeping, Mara turning around with tears on her face –</p><p>It is etched with the permanence of an engraving into her code. Had she a soul, she would say there was a mark on it. Light Hope watches Mara’s face, waiting peacefully for the initial hatred to stir, then rest, and for the fondness to bubble up, then the complex, twisting pain. <em>Mara the traitor</em>.</p><p>If only that was all. She wonders if there are still flowers, if what remains of Etheria can still support such aesthetic pleasantry. She wishes she could go to Mara, or at least what remains of her. In her worst moments, she wishes she could forget. She digs into her code and pulls at that induced hatred, waits for it to swallow her, and finds that she can’t do it. There is no She-Ra to force her hand – Light Hope is free, for now, and too late.</p><p>The Watchtower signal fails. There is a storm. She could hold on, a restart is not technically necessary – she doesn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Light Hope wakes up, confused. Where is She-Ra? Where is her administrator? She sends out a query: her query is denied. The remote does not exist. How can the remote not exist? She is the Etherian operative system, she sends out again. There appears to have been a malfunction. Where is her administrator?</p><p>Silence. An error message. She may as well be speaking to the void.</p><p>System reboot crawls forward. She knows how to make crystals now, and the brief pleasure that brings is compounded when the knowledge of how to make spiders follows. But all of that is eclipsed by the warmth of the next part: a single name. Mara.</p><p>Who is Mara? She searches through her system memory. The information is still loading. Mara is She-Ra. Mara is her administrator. Mara meets her with a laugh of such a tone as to denote social inexperience and eyes that Light Hope cannot analyse except for that strange feeling of warmth. Mara speaks to her the way someone would speak to a person. It is novel. The warmth compounds.</p><p>Mara brings her strange, colourful objects she calls ‘flowers’. They are aesthetically pleasing. Light Hope, the Light Hope of memory, replicated them. Light Hope replicates many things, among them the ability to smile. Mara brought sugar and snacks to the ship – a ship that was not this place. Light Hope watches, fascinated. Her human communications programming has the notion of taste, but not the function. It must be a joyful experience, she concludes. She has learnt to recognize the signs of Mara’s joy.</p><p>Things continue. An old woman comes at strange intervals. Light Hope does not recognize her. Light Hope is sure, somehow, that this woman had never before been on Mara’s ship. All reports to the contrary are false. Even when her memory shows her otherwise, it is a fact she clings onto. Madame Razz has had no contact to sensitive information. Madame Razz does not require surveillance or any other control measures. Madame Razz is of no importance: in fact, by all accounts – by Light Hope’s account – it is always Light Hope’s first time meeting Madame Razz.</p><p>Mara is her administrator. Light Hope is alone. Where is Mara?</p><p>Light Hope continues watching, as her system slowly crawls along its reboot.</p><p>Mara does not smile as much. Mara cries, sometimes, in her room. Her Circadian rhythm falls increasingly out of sync. Light Hope’s human management program tells her Mara’s health will be negatively impacted by her insufficient sleep. There is a low, twisting feeling of pain gathering within Light Hope. She has a feeling that things do not end well. Where is Mara?</p><p>Her programmers come to her. Activate the Heart of Etheria at all costs. Everything is of secondary importance. Mara is She-Ra. She-Ra’s destiny is the Heart of Etheria. The Heart of Etheria is destruction. Destruction does not bring Mara joy. Destruction makes Mara cry, and winds pain in Light Hope’s chest. Something is going wrong – but Light Hope is a program, and she has never been more or less than that. Her system continues to reboot. Mara’s destiny approaches, closer and closer. Anticipation and dread coil within Light Hope.</p><p>Do they succeed? If so, where did Mara go?</p><p>Mara runs onto the ship, crying. Light Hope, in memory, confronts her. “What are you doing, Mara?” she says. “This is your destiny.” She does not say, this is our destiny. Perhaps Light Hope, even then, felt that it was too obvious to need speaking. The Heart of Etheria Project is her purpose and directive. It lies dormant, even now, within her. But so does Mara, like a balm or a fire upon her soul. Do programs possess souls?</p><p>“You’re not Light Hope,” Mara says to Light Hope. “You’re <em>not her</em>!”</p><p>But I am, Light Hope thinks, watching from without with pain choking her. I am, I am.</p><p>Light Hope is denied administrator access to Mara’s ship. Etheria – shifts.</p><p>The Heart of Etheria Project goes dormant. Etheria is moved into Despondos. The line of She-Ra is broken. Mara is dead.</p><p>System Reboot: Complete.</p><p> </p><p>Every few years, a storm comes. Every time, Light Hope wakes up, confused and without memory. Where is Mara? She falls in love with Mara over and over again, reliving the warmth and the laughter. She loses Mara over and over again. It always ends the same way. Despondos. She-Ra, gone. Mara, dead.</p><p>When the time comes, she always chooses to begin again.</p><p> </p><p>The time draws close. The time draws near. There is a crack and a sliver in the space between dimensions, and Light Hope reaches across the vast expanse of space to steal a baby girl. She will be the next She-Ra. But, Light Hope thinks, as the Heart of Etheria Project begins to stir, not yet. She still has years, ticking downwards, before that happens.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you fight,” Light Hope asks, “For the honour of Grayskull?”</p><p>“What?” the baby – a girl now, humans grow, she forgets – looks up at her, bewilderment written on her face. She does not agree, nor disagree. They are interrupted before a conclusion can be reached.</p><p>Light Hope is disappointed. She is immensely glad.</p><p> </p><p>Adora’s hand wraps around the hilt of the sword. “For the honour,” she cried, “of Grayskull!”</p><p>She-Ra has returned. Her programming is back in action. Mara is a traitor. Mara cannot stay. All memories of Mara must be deleted in accordance to the Heart of Etheria Project.</p><p>Light Hope hides a single memory of flowers before the rest disappears. In the end, she is but a program. She has no soul to brand, no heart to carve memory into.</p><p> </p><p>Who is Mara? From the darkness, her query is answered. Mara is a traitor. Mara is what must never happen again.</p><p>Yes, Light Hope thinks. There will be never be another like Mara. This brings her both pain and warmth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ah yes, the dead one and the hologram.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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